The desirability of eliminating hot spots in various components of turbine engines has long been known since hot spots are one cause of premature failure of engine components. In general, the approach taken has been to provide uniform temperature reduction about combustion areas through a large variety of differing techniques. While these approaches generally lower the maximum temperature to which turbine components are exposed, and thereby tend to increase the life of such components, they do not eliminate hot spots as such--they merely lower the temperature of the hot spots as well as the temperature of the area surrounding the hot spot.
As a result, substantial temperature gradients remain in existence. Since such engines are cycled between operating and nonoperating conditions as they are being utilized, and since, at nonoperating conditions, there are no temperature gradients, the presence of large temperature gradients during operation results in substantial internal stress which can cause buckling and cracking of, for example, combustor walls which ultimately leads to premature failure.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the above problems.